Tag Archives: Syrian Peace Talks

Syrian rebels say froze talks on peace conference due to ceasefire violations

A rebel fighter stands on a lookout point with his weapon on the forth day of the truce, on al-Rayhan village front near the rebel held besieged city of Douma, in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian rebel groups said on Monday they had decided to freeze any talks about their possible participation in Syrian peace negotiations being prepared by Moscow in Kazakhstan unless the Syrian government and its Iran-backed allies end what it said were violations of a ceasefire.

In a statement, the rebel groups also said that any territorial advances by the army and Iran-backed militias that are fighting alongside it would end the fragile ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey, which back opposing sides, that came into effect on Friday.

“The regime and its allies have continued firing and committed many and large violations,” said the statement signed by the mainly moderate rebel groups operating under the umbrella of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The U.N. Security Council on Saturday gave its blessing to the ceasefire deal, which are slated to be followed by peace talks in the Kazakh capital, Astana.

The statement said the main violations were in an area northwest of Damascus in the rebel-held Wadi Barada valley, where government forces and the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group have been trying to press advances in an ongoing campaign.

Rebels say the army is seeking to recapture the area, where a major spring provides most of Damascus’s water supplies and which lies on a major supply route from Lebanon to the Syrian capital used by Hezbollah.

Like previous Syria ceasefire deals, it has been shaky from the start, with repeated outbreaks of violence in some areas, but has largely held elsewhere.

The rebel groups questioned Russia’s ability to force the Syrian government and their allies to abide by the terms of the ceasefire deal.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Air strike hits Syrian market, opposition says truce must be respected

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – A Syrian or Russian air strike was reported to have killed at least a dozen people and possibly many more at a market in northwestern Syria on Monday, straining a cessation of hostilities agreement meant to pave the way for peace talks.

In a further upsurge in violence, al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and other Islamist insurgents not included in the U.S.-Russian agreement attacked government forces in a neighboring province, a monitoring group said.

The agreement, accepted by President Bashar al-Assad’s government and most of his enemies, has reduced violence in Syria since it took effect on Feb 27, the first truce of its kind in a 5-year-old war that has killed more than 250,000 people and caused the world’s worst refugee crisis.

Foreign powers hope the pause in fighting can lead to peace talks to end the conflict. But the agreement, which has not been directly signed by the Syrian warring parties and is less binding than a formal ceasefire, is very fragile and each side has accused the other of breaking it.

Damascus and Moscow have vowed to continue fighting groups outside the agreement such as Islamic State and the Nusra Front, which is widely deployed across western Syria in close proximity to groups that agreed to cease fire. Many rebels say they believe the government and its Russian allies can use the presence of the militants as an excuse to fight on.

The death toll from the air strike on a market selling diesel in rebel-held Idlib province was likely to rise, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said, adding that it did not know whether the Syrian government or its Russian ally was responsible.

Riad Hijab, chairman of the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said “tens” of people had been killed in what he described as a massacre. There was no word from the Syrian government, which has said it is respecting the agreement.

Hijab said the opposition would decide by the end of the week whether to attend the talks, which the United Nations aims to start this week. Another HNC member told Reuters it was leaning toward going.

The Nusra Front and the Islamist Jund al-Aqsa attacked government forces near the village of al-Ais in the southern Aleppo countryside on Monday and gained some ground in subsequent clashes, the Britain-based Observatory said.

The agreement has been followed by more aid deliveries to opposition-held areas blockaded by the government, though the opposition says the quantities fall far short of the needs.

DISPUTED MAP

Rebels have said government forces, their war effort buoyed by five months of Russian air strikes, appear to be mobilizing forces. Opposition fighters say there have been numerous government attacks on their positions during the cessation, notably in northwestern Syria near the border with Turkey.

Russia has meanwhile said weapons are being supplied daily to rebels from Turkey, a major foreign sponsor of the rebellion.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Monday eight ceasefire violations had been registered in Syria over the past 24 hours.

The Syrian army has said very little about operations in western areas of Syria covered by the agreement, though it has said operations against Nusra continue.

The town struck in Monday’s air strike is close to an air base which Nusra Front and other groups captured last September. Government forces also shelled the rebel-held town of Jisr al-Shughour in Idlib province, the Observatory said.

Hijab, speaking in a conference call with reporters, said he had sent a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to complain about a map of armed groups’ positions, which was published by the Russian Defence Ministry. He said the map was not accurate.

In a separate incident, the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said the death toll from insurgent attacks on a mainly YPG-controlled residential quarter of northern city Aleppo on Sunday had risen to 16, including nine children.

The Observatory said it was the biggest single toll since the agreement came into effect.

The YPG said later on Monday insurgents from the Failaq al-Sham Islamist group had “infiltrated” near a village near the YPG-controlled city of Afrin in northwestern Aleppo province and fired at residents.

The YPG, which works with the United States but is considered hostile by U.S. ally Turkey, has for months been battling insurgents that receive support through Turkey in Aleppo city and in the north of the province.

GOVERNING AUTHORITY

Western states have said the cessation of hostilities appears to be largely holding, hoping that will allow for peace talks to get underway. A previous attempt to convene talks was aborted in February before any face-to-face meetings took place.

The obstacles to talks remain formidable, including differences over the future of Assad. The opposition wants Assad removed from power at the start of a transitional period, a demand Western countries have backed away from as Russia’s military intervention has reshaped the war in his favor.

HNC member Riad Nassan Agha said a final decision on attending the Geneva talks would depend on issues including the degree of compliance with the truce and progress toward easing humanitarian conditions.

But noting what he described as a reduction in ceasefire violations by the government side in the last two days, Agha said “our inclination is to go” and said he expected opposition delegates to start arriving on Friday.

He added that truce violations must be reduced to “zero” and that nothing else must happen to obstruct the start of talks.

“We will go, God willing,” he said.

The agenda must focus on the “formation of a transitional governing authority” in line with a U.N. Security Council resolution, he said, adding: “We will not accept getting into issues outside what the resolution sets out”.

(Additional reporting by John Davision; Editing by Dominic Evans, Philippa Fletcher and Peter Graff)

Syria opposition says government mobilizes, casts doubt on talks

BEIRUT/PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) – The Syrian opposition said on Friday the government was mobilizing forces on many fronts despite an agreement to cease hostilities, and cast doubt on whether peace talks planned for next week would take place.

As rockets fired by government forces were reported to hit near the rebel-held town of Jisr al-Shughour in Idlib province, an influential rebel group said there could be no ceasefire while attacks continue.

An unprecedented U.S.-Russian agreement that came into effect on Saturday has slowed the pace of the 5-year-old war, but rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad say the government has kept up attacks on strategically important frontlines.

The opposition has yet to say whether it will attend peace talks planned for March 9. Opposition coordinator Riad Hijab said the conditions for talks were “not favorable” but it was too early to say whether they would happen or not.

Assad, his war effort buoyed by five months of Russian air strikes, has said the army is respecting the agreement. The truce does not cover the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front or Islamic State, two groups which Moscow and Damascus have said they will continue to fight.

The Nusra Front is widely deployed across western Syria in close proximity to groups that agreed to cease fire, many of which say they believe the government and its Russian allies can use the presence of the militants as an excuse to fight on. Syrian state media have said very little about operations in western Syria since Saturday.

The Syrian opposition appears at odds with its Western backers over the success of the truce so far.

European leaders told Russian President Vladimir Putin they welcomed the fact the fragile truce appeared to be holding, and it should be used to try to secure peace without Assad.

But Hijab said government forces had attacked more than 50 opposition-held areas where groups that approved the truce were based.

Mohamad Alloush, a senior official in one of the largest rebel groups, Jaish al-Islam, told Reuters the government was mobilizing forces to “occupy very important strategic areas”. His group, in a separate statement, said the war had not stopped as far as it was concerned, and that a ceasefire was not possible while “militias and states kill our people”.

The head of another rebel group, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, said 40 army vehicles loaded with weaponry were seen heading northwards on Thursday night.

Government operations were “focused on Homs, on the coast mostly”, while Aleppo – the target of a major government offensive a month ago – was relatively calm, he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based organization that tracks the conflict, said heavy shelling and rocket fire landed around the town of Ghasaniya near rebel-held Jisr al-Shughour on Friday.

It also said warplanes on Friday mounted the first air strike against the rebel-held town of Douma near Damascus since the start of the cessation. It did not say whether the planes were Russian or belonged to the Syrian army.

“THE WAR HAS NOT STOPPED”

The U.S. and Russian sponsored cessation of hostilities agreement, which has not been signed directly by the Syrian warring parties and is less binding than a formal ceasefire, is the first of its kind during a conflict that has killed more than 250,000 people.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday the agreement was holding but remained fragile and incidents had been contained. The U.S. State Department said on Thursday there had been no significant violations in the preceding 24 hours.

Assad said earlier this week that the militants had breached the deal from the first day and the army was refraining from responding to give the deal a chance.

Much of southern Syria, including areas near the border with Jordan, has been calm, though a rebel spokesman said government forces were also mobilizing there. “If the truce ends, the regime is ready to attack in a number of areas,” said Abu Ghiath al-Shami of the Alwiyat Seif al-Sham group.

The government, backed by Russian air power and fighters from Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, made significant territorial gains against rebels since the new year, focused in areas of western Syria near the borders with Turkey and Jordan.

De Mistura attempted to hold peace talks a month ago but these failed before they had even started in earnest.

France, Britain and Germany called on the opposition to attend the talks, but warned that the negotiations would succeed only if humanitarian access were granted and the truce respected.

“If these two conditions are not met, then the negotiation process is bound to fail, which we do not want,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told journalists in Paris.

RUSSIA SAYS COMMITTED TO CEASEFIRE

The opposition council, known as the High Negotiations Committee, has said humanitarian demands previously listed as conditions for peace talks have still not been met. These include free access for humanitarian aid to opposition-held areas blockaded by government forces and a release of detainees.

Alloush, the senior Jaish al-Islam official, told Reuters aid delivered in recent days to opposition-held areas “is not enough to meet 10 percent of the needs, and nothing has entered most of the areas”.

In a conference call between the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Russia, Putin confirmed Russia’s commitment to the ceasefire, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

Western countries want Assad to leave power, and the main opposition council says he should leave before any political transition starts. Russia has stood by him, while saying only Syrians should decide his fate.

In an interview with France 24, U.N. envoy de Mistura also said it was up to Syrians to decide: “Why should we be saying in advance what should the Syrians say, as long as they have the freedom and the opportunity of saying so?”

A spokeswoman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said the European leaders told Putin the truce must be used to try to secure peace without Assad, but their main point on the phone call was to welcome the fact the truce appeared to be holding.

The Kremlin said the leaders agreed that the cessation of hostilities had started yielding its first positive results.

“The importance of continued uncompromising fight against Islamic State, the Nusra Front and other terrorist groups” was stressed during the conversation, it said.

Hijab reiterated opposition complaints that the United States had made many concessions to Russia, including on the cessation of hostilities agreement.

“This is unfortunately at the expense of the Syrian revolution,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Maria Sheahan, Thierry Chiarello, John Irish and Andrew Callus in Paris, Elizabeth Piper in London, and Lidia Kelly in Moscow; writing by Tom Perry; editing by Peter Graff)

U.N. to restart Syria peace talks on March 9

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations will delay the next round of Syria peace talks by two days to allow the cessation of hostilities in force since Saturday to take hold, U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said.

International observers have acknowledged violations of the agreement intended to halt nearly five years of fighting while reporting that the level of violence has decreased considerably.

“We are delaying it to the afternoon of (March) 9th for logistical and technical reasons and also for the ceasefire to better settle down,” de Mistura told Reuters on Tuesday. The talks had been penciled in for March 7.

The cessation of hostilities was “a glimmer of hope”, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said, although he accused the opposition of violating the agreement.

The opposition in turn says the Syrian government has breached the fragile truce by repeatedly attacking its positions, which the government denies.

“We will play our part to make the whole thing work,” Assad told Germany’s ARD television network, adding that the Syrian army had not reacted to truce violations in order to give the agreement a chance.

“The terrorists have breached the deal from the first day. We as the Syrian army are refraining from responding in order to give a chance to sustain the agreement. But in the end there are limits and it all depends on the other side,” Assad said.

The cessation of hostilities agreement, drawn up by the United States and Russia, is seen by the U.N. as an opportunity to revive peace talks which collapsed before they had even started a month ago in Geneva.

It also hopes the truce will allow humanitarian aid to be sent into besieged areas where manySyrians are living in dire conditions.

However, the opposition said it had yet to be officially informed of a new round of talks on March 9, insisting that no serious discussions can begin before detainees are freed and blockades are lifted.

Riad Nassan Agha, a member of the High Negotiations Committee, told Reuters the opposition would study the call for talks based on developments on the ground, adding that it heard of the March 9 date only through the media.

NEGOTIATING TABLE

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said there was an urgent need to implement the agreement and for the warring parties to return to the negotiating table, a U.N. statement said.

“They agreed on the importance of urgently moving forward simultaneously on implementing the cessation of hostilities agreement, providing vital humanitarian assistance to civilians, and returning to political negotiations,” the statement said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that while efforts were being made to track down alleged violations of the cessation of hostilities, there was currently no evidence to suggest they would destabilize the fragile peace.

In a telephone conversation on Tuesday, Lavrov and Kerry reaffirmed the importance of coordination, chiefly military, between Moscow and Washington to strengthen the truce, the Russian foreign ministry reported.

De Mistura expected to see attempts to disrupt the ceasefire, saying these needed to be contained to avoid them spreading and undermining the credibility of the truce.

“We don’t want discussions in Geneva to become a discussion about infringements or not of the ceasefire, we want them to actually address the core of everything,” he said in an interview.

De Mistura wants the Syrian sides to focus on constitutional reform, governance, and hopes elections can be held in 18 months. Prisoner releases would also be “very much up front on the agenda”, he said.

Syria‘s Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Hussam Aala, said his government was cooperating over aid deliveries, including to rebel-led areas. It was facilitating “access to humanitarian aid to those who need it without discrimination, between the besieged zones or zones infiltrated by terrorists”.

However, addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council, he also accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of financing jihadist rebel groups including the Nusra Front, which is linked to al Qaeda, and also rejected criticism from France.

JIHADIST GROUPS

The agreement does not include Islamic State or the Nusra Front, and Assad and his Russian backers have made clear they intend to keep attacking them.

The Saudi-backed “moderate” opposition says that because some of their fighters are in areas alongside Nusra, they fear being targeted too.

The Russian Defence Ministry said it was refraining from striking areas where the “moderate opposition” was respecting the ceasefire agreement, Interfax news agency reported.

A total of 15 ceasefire violations have been registered in Syria in the past 24 hours, Interfax quoted the Russian military as saying. The U.S. State Department, however, said it had not received any reports of “significant” violations.

The Syrian military denied it was responsible for any violations and said “terrorist groups”, the term it uses to describe its enemies, were to blame. Operations against Islamic State – also known as Daesh – and the Nusra Front were going ahead.

“The combat operations that the Syrian Arab Army is carrying out against Daesh and Nusra are continuing according to the plans of the military command,” a Syrian military source said.

(Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly and Tom Perry; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Peter Millership, Pravin Char and David Stamp)

Syrian opposition says government is wrecking truce deal

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – A senior official from Syria’s main opposition group said on Monday that a fragile international attempt to halt nearly five years of fighting was in danger of total collapse because of attacks by government forces.

The cessation of hostilities drawn up by Washington and Moscow faced “complete nullification” because Syrian government attacks were violating the agreement, the official of the Saudi-backed opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) said.

France said there were reports of attacks on opposition forces in breach of the deal, which came into force on Saturday, and countries backing the Syrian peace process met to try to clarify the situation.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the pause in the fighting was largely holding, despite some incidents that he hoped would be contained. The Kremlin said the process was under way, although it had always been clear it would not be easy.

In Washington, the White House said the United States remained committed to implementing the cessation of hostilities despite reports of violations over the weekend.

The cessation deal does not include jihadist groups such as Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, however, and Russia, which is backing the Syrian government with air power, has made clear it intends to keep bombing these groups.

An aide to Saudi Arabia’s defense minister said on Monday, meanwhile, that defense ministers from the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State had discussed the possibility of a Syrian ground incursion two weeks ago in Brussels.

“It was discussed at the political level but it wasn’t discussed as a military mission,” Saudi Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri told Reuters. “Once this is organized, and decided how many troops and how they will go and where they will go, we will participate in that.”

The cessation of hostilities agreement, the first of its kind since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, is a less formal arrangement than a ceasefire. It is meant to allow peace talks to resume and aid to reach besieged communities.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was largely holding with casualties greatly reduced compared with before the agreement took effect.

Syrian forces made some gains, however. The Observatory reported they had taken territory near Damascus on Monday after a battle with the Nusra Front and other Islamist rebels.

Syrian government forces also regained control of a road to the northern city of Aleppo after making advances against Islamic State fighters.

Aid trucks carrying non-food items such as blankets on Monday entered Mouadamiya, a suburb of Damascus under siege by government forces, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent said.

The United Nations and other agencies hope to deliver aid to more than 150,000 people in besieged areas over the next five days.

GLOOMY ASSESSMENT

Asaad al-Zoubi, head of the HNC’s delegation to the peace talks, gave a gloomy assessment of the truce. “We are not facing a violation of the truce … we are facing a complete nullification,” he said on Al Arabiya al Hadath TV.

“I believe the international community has totally failed in all its experiments, and must take real, practical measures toward the (Syrian) regime,” Zoubi said, without elaborating.

He said there were no signs of any preparations for peace talks, which the U.N. wants to reconvene on March 7.

Talks in Geneva in early February collapsed before they started, with rebels saying they could not negotiate while they were being bombed.

HNC spokesman Salim al-Muslat said the truce was a step in the right direction, but a mechanism was needed to stop such violations and encourage negotiations.

“There has to be a power that really stops what Russia and what the regime is doing,” Muslat said in a television interview with Reuters in Riyadh. “Today there [were] about 10 Russian air strikes, about 16 air strikes done by the regime.”

Syrian officials could not immediately be reached for comment on claims that government forces were violating the cessation. The government has said it is abiding by the agreement.

However, a Syrian foreign ministry official accused Saudi Arabia of trying to undermine the cessation of hostilities agreement by saying there would be a “Plan B” if it failed. He did not give details of the plan, which is believed to include military action.

Russia on Monday also rejected any suggestion of a Plan B, which has been alluded to by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Countries belonging to the “International Syria Support Group” (ISSG), led by the United States and Russia, met in Geneva on Monday.

They are supposed to monitor compliance with the deal and act rapidly to end any flare-ups.

“We have received indications that attacks, including by air, have been continuing against zones controlled by the moderate opposition,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in Geneva. “All this needs to be verified.”

AIR STRIKES ARE HEAVY

The HNC said the cessation of hostilities was broken by the Syrian government 15 times on the first day, and that there were further violations by Russia and Hezbollah, both allies of President Bashar al-Assad.

On the ground, rebels said the violence was below pre-ceasefire levels in some places and little changed in others.

Colonel Fares al-Bayoush, head of a Free Syrian Army group called the Northern Division, told Reuters: “The air strikes are heavy today, especially by Russian planes.”

Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi, a fighter with the Ajnad al-Sham group in northwestern Syria, said the government had shelled a number of villages. “It is regular bombardment, no change. The regime after the truce is as it was before.”

A fighter in the Aleppo area said the overall level of violence had gone down, but there were many violations and people were pessimistic.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war through a network of contacts on the ground, said the number of people dying each day had gone down substantially since the cessation started.

“Yesterday, around 20 people died, both fighters and civilians. Before, there was an average of maybe around 180 people a day. It’s a big reduction in terms of human losses,” Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said.

(Additional reporting by John Davison, Mariam Karouny, Tom Perry, Lisa Barrington, Ali Abdelatti, Stephanie Nebehay, Ayesha Rascoe, Susan Heavey and Ece Toksabay; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Peter Millership, David Stamp and Pravin Char)

U.N. demands Syria parties halt fighting, peace talks set for March 7

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations Security Council on Friday unanimously demanded that all parties to the civil war in Syria comply with the terms of a U.S.-Russian deal on a “cessation of hostilities” due to take effect at midnight local time.

The demand was included in a resolution drafted jointly by Russia and the United States that also urged the government and opposition to resume U.N.-brokered peace talks.

Before the 15-nation council voted, U.N. Syria mediator Staffan de Mistura told its members via video link from Geneva that he intends to reconvene peace talks on March 7 provided the halt in fighting largely holds and allows for greater delivery of humanitarian relief.

The council demanded “that all parties to whom the cessation of hostilities applies … fulfill their commitments.”

It also urged “all Member States, especially ISSG (International Syria Support Group) members, to use their influence with the parties to the cessation of hostilities to ensure fulfillment of those commitments and to support efforts to create conditions for a durable and lasting ceasefire.”

De Mistura had abruptly aborted a first round of talks on Feb. 3 and urged countries in the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), led by the United States and Russia, to do more preparatory work.

“It is going to be extremely challenging, especially at the outset, to make this work,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told the council. “Even a partial de-escalation would make a real difference in the lives of Syrians.”

She added that any violations of the cessation of hostilities must be met with a “sober, coordinated response.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Ministry Gennady Gatilov told the council that “we now have a real chance to end violence and to step up our collective combat against terrorism.” He added that it would also be an opportunity to boost humanitarian aid relief.

The council meeting was delayed by half an hour as the United States and Russia engaged in last-minute negotiations on the text, diplomats told Reuters.

Among the changes was the removal of two references to the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee (HNC), a Syrian opposition coalition that Russia and Iran do not consider to be a legitimate representative in the peace talks.

French Ambassador Francois Delattre was cautious.

“Resumption of (peace) discussions will only be possible if the agreed-upon commitments are strictly implemented by the regime and foreign powers that support it,” he said,

He said he was disturbed by the “intensification of bombings by the Syrian army and Russia, a few hours only before the start of the (halt).”

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols and Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Andrew Hay)

Al Qaeda in Syria calls for more fighting as deadline nears

BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Syria’s branch of al Qaeda, one of its most powerful Islamist rebel groups, called for an escalation in fighting against the government and its allies, adding to the dangers facing an agreement to halt fighting set to start on Saturday.

The government and rebel groups have agreed to take part in a U.S.-Russian “cessation of hostilities” accord that is due to begin at midnight. Warring parties had been required to accept by noon.

Under the measure, which has not been signed by the Syrian warring parties themselves and is less binding than a formal ceasefire, the government and its enemies are expected to stop shooting so aid can reach civilians and peace talks begin.

The truce does not apply to jihadist groups such as Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, and the Damascus government and its Russian allies say they will not halt combat against those militants. Other rebels seen as moderates by the West say they fear this will be used to justify attacks on them.

The Nusra Front on Friday urged insurgent groups to intensify their attacks against President Bashar al-Assad and his allies.

Nusra’s leader, Abu Mohamad al-Golani, said in an audio message on Orient News TV that insurgents should “strengthen your resolve and intensify your strikes, and do not let their planes and great numbers (of troops) scare you”.

Unlike Islamic State, which controls defined areas of territory in central and eastern Syria, the Nusra Front is widely dispersed in opposition-held areas in the west, and any escalation would add to the risks of the truce collapsing.

Nusra is bigger than nearly all the factions taking part in the cessation, with fighters across western Syria.

As the deadline for the cessation of hostilities approached, heavy air strikes were reported to have hit rebel-held areas near Damascus while fighting raged across much of western Syria.

The Syrian government has agreed to the cessation plan. The main opposition alliance, which has deep reservations, said it would accept it for two weeks but feared the government and its allies would use it to attack opposition factions under the pretext that they were terrorists.

President Vladimir Putin said Russia had received information that all parties expected to take part in the cessation of hostilities had said they were ready to do so, Russian news agencies reported.

Putin stressed that combat actions against Islamic State, the Nusra Front and other groups which the Syrian government regards as terrorists would continue.

“I would like to express the hope that our American partners will also bear this in mind … and that nobody will forget that there are other terrorist organizations apart from Islamic State,” he said in Moscow.

BREATHING SPACE

The United Nations hopes the pause in fighting will provide a breathing space to resume peace talks in Geneva, which collapsed this month before they began.

A Russian Foreign Ministry official said the Geneva talks could resume on March 7. In New York, diplomats said the U.N. Security Council would vote on Friday on a resolution endorsing the planned pause in fighting.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring organization, on Friday reported at least 26 air raids and artillery shelling targeting the town of Douma in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.

Rescue workers said five people were killed in Douma. Syrian military officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Eastern Ghouta is regularly targeted by the Syrian army and its allies. It is a stronghold of the Jaish al-Islam rebel group, which is represented in the main opposition alliance, the High Negotiations Committee. The area has been used as a launch pad for rocket and mortar attacks on Damascus.

The HNC groups political and armed opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, and many groups fighting in northern and southern Syria have authorized it to negotiate on their behalf.

The Observatory also reported artillery bombardment by government forces and air strikes overnight in Hama province, and artillery fire by government forces in Homs province.

Fighting also resumed at dawn between rebels and government forces in the northwestern province of Latakia, where the Syrian army and its allies are trying to take back more territory from insurgents at the border with Turkey.

A spokesman for President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey has serious worries about the plan to halt violence in Syria because of the continued fighting on the ground.

Turkey’s role in the ceasefire has been complicated by its deep distrust of the Washington-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG. Ankara sees the group as a terrorist organization and has shelled YPG positions in northern Syria in recent weeks in retaliation, it says, for cross-border fire.

Washington has supported the YPG in the fight against Islamic State in Syria.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday the United States was resolved to try to make the cessation of hostilities deal work but that “there are plenty of reasons for scepticism”.

(Additional reporting by John Davison, Denis Dyomkin, Dmitry Solovyov, Jack Stubbs, Tom Miles, Tulay Karadeniz, Humeyra Pamuk, Leila Bassam and Louis Charbonneau; writing by Giles Elgood; editing by Peter Graff)

Russia, Syrian army pound rebels ahead of fighting halt

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russian warplanes bombed Syrian rebel-held areas in northwestern Syria and government forces pounded a suburb of the capital on Thursday, ahead of a planned halt to fighting which rebels predicted Damascus and Moscow would ignore.

The “cessation of hostilities” agreed by the United States and Russia is due to take hold on Saturday morning from midnight. But opponents of President Bashar al-Assad say they expect the government to press on with its advance, by branding opposition fighters al Qaeda militants unprotected by the truce.

Damascus has agreed to the deal, as has the main opposition alliance, though it is only ready to commit for two weeks given its deep reservations. But the government and its allies will be permitted to forge on with strikes against jihadist militants of Islamic State and an al Qaeda-linked group, the Nusra Front.

The government also says the agreement could fail if foreign states supply rebels with weapons or insurgents use the truce to rearm.

Fighting in the final days before the truce has focused on Daraya, a besieged suburb of the capital held by fighters the government describes as Nusra militants but rebels say are from other groups, and on the northwest near the Turkish frontier.

Four months of Russian air strikes turned momentum Assad’s way in a 5-year-old war that has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis and seen Islamic State fighters declare a “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq.

The multi-sided civil war has drawn in most regional and global powers, with Western countries, Arab states and Turkey forming a coalition against Islamic State while also backing rebels fighting to overthrow Assad. Russia and Iran support him.

BARREL BOMBS

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that monitors the conflict, said army helicopters dropped at least 30 “barrel bombs” on Daraya on Thursday. Assad’s opponents say the army drops oil drums filled with explosives and shrapnel to cause indiscriminate harm in rebel areas.

The government blamed groups linked to Nusra for firing mortars into residential areas of Damascus, killing at least one person.

A spokesman for rebels in southern Syria predicted Daraya would be the first place where the truce would collapse.

“They want to exploit the ceasefire and focus their fire on Daraya to take it. This will be the first breach. We won’t accept it,” said Abu Ghiath al-Shami, spokesman for the Alwiyat Seif al-Sham group, part of a rebel alliance in the south.

A Syrian military source also signaled that Damascus would not cease fighting in Daraya.

“There is evidence that the ones there are Nusra Front. They found documents, books, flags that point to the Nusra Front being in Daraya,” the military source said. “In any place where there is Nusra Front, we will continue operations.”

Fighting has also escalated in the last two days in the northwestern province of Latakia, where Free Syrian Army groups backed by Assad’s foreign enemies operate close to Nusra fighters and other jihadists.

“The regime wants to try to retake all of northern Latakia before Feb. 26,” said Fadi Ahmad, spokesman for the First Coastal Division rebel group, speaking to Reuters from the area.

VERY FIERCE BATTLES

“The battles are very fierce. Yesterday, there were heavy battles in the part of rural Latakia that is still with us,” he said, adding he did not expect the government or its Russian allies to abide by the truce: “Three minutes ago I saw a Russian plane in the sky hitting us here in rural Latakia.”

The Syrian military source also said operations were taking place in the northern Latakia area.

Recapturing areas of Latakia province at the Turkish border has been a top priority for Damascus and its allies since Russia began its strikes. It is one of several areas where the government has made major gains this year.

Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Observatory, confirmed heavy air strikes in northern Latakia on Wednesday and Thursday.

He predicted the presence of the Nusra Front and like-minded groups would give the government grounds to press on with fighting there under the agreement.

One of the main purposes of the cessation of hostilities is to allow aid to reach civilians, especially in besieged areas cut off from supplies.

A U.N. air-drop of food to 200,000 people in the besieged city of Deir al-Zor failed on Wednesday, with all 21 palettes dropped by parachute either damaged, landing in no-man’s land or unaccounted for, a U.N. World Food Programme spokeswoman said.

U.N. advisor Jan Egeland nevertheless said the cessation of hostilities could rescue the civilian population from “the abyss” and end the “black chapter” of sieges.

Assad told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday his government was ready to help implement the halt to fighting. The two leaders nevertheless stressed the importance of an “uncompromising” fight against Islamic State, the Nusra Front and other jihadists not party to the truce.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday said he was cautious about raising expectations, but if some progress were made that would lead to a political process to end the war.

“THERE’S NO PLAN B”

Russian officials have seized on comments by Secretary of State John Kerry that Washington would consider a “Plan B” if the ceasefire failed. Russia’s RIA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying there was no such “Plan B”.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused “some U.S. officials” of trying to “sabotage” the ceasefire plan.

However, after more than five years of failure to negotiate any end to fighting, and with Russia’s intervention having had a decisive impact on the ground, it was not clear what sort of fallback plan Washington might consider if the truce fails.

Bob Corker, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Republican critic of the Obama administration, said of Putin: “I think he understands there’s no ‘plan B’.”

The Russians were “now dominating,” Corker told MSNBC. “It’s totally in Russia’s hands now.”

United Nations Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said he would announce on Friday a date for a new round of talks between Syria’s warring parties. The last talks were called off this month before they got under way, with rebels saying they could not talk while government troops advanced and Russia bombed.

The Syrian Kurdish YPG militia told Reuters on Wednesday it would abide by the plan to halt fighting but reserved the right to respond if attacked. The YPG is an important partner in the U.S-led coalition fighting Islamic State, but has also been fighting other insurgent groups in northwestern Syria near Aleppo, and is considered an enemy by NATO member Turkey.

Turkey, which has fired across the frontier at the YPG, said it would not consider itself bound by the cessation of hostilities if it were threatened by either the YPG or Islamic State.

(Additional reporting by Jack Stubbs in Moscow, Tom Miles in Geneva and Susan Heavey in Washington, writing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff, editing by Peter Millership)

Obama cautious on Syria fighting halt as opposition yet to commit

WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama expressed caution on Wednesday about a plan to stop fighting in Syria, while the main opposition group said it had yet to commit to the deal.

Combatants are required to say whether they will agree to the “cessation of hostilities” by noon on Friday, and to halt fighting at midnight Saturday.

The United Nations hopes the planned halt in the fighting will provide a breathing space for Syrian peace talks to resume.

The last round in Geneva broke up earlier this month without progress after the Syrian government launched a Russian-backed offensive on the city of Aleppo, where more fighting was reported on Wednesday.

Obama told reporters in Washington that if some progress was made in Syria, that would lead to a political process to end the five-year-old war there. “We are very cautious about raising expectations on this,” he said.

Although U.S officials have raised the question of a political transition in Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, shows no sign of stepping aside.

The Saudi-backed HNC, which groups political and armed opponents of Assad, said on Monday it had “given its acceptance of international efforts for a cessation of hostilities”.

But HNC chief negotiator Mohamad Alloush said on Wednesday that the council had not yet decided whether to commit to the agreement, underlining rebel doubts over a deal they fear will not prevent Russian air strikes against them.

The cessation of hostilities plan does not include Islamic State or the Nusra Front, an al Qaeda affiliate which is widely deployed in opposition-held areas.

“How can (Russia) offer guarantees while it is part of the problem?” said Alloush, who heads the political office of the Jaish al-Islam rebel group, in an interview with the pro-opposition Orient TV station.

The Syrian government, its war effort buoyed since September by the Russian air force, has accepted the cessation of hostilities agreement announced on Monday.

Assad told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday that his government was ready to help implement the deal.

Putin and Assad, who held a telephone conversation, stressed the importance of a continued “uncompromising” fight against Islamic State, the Nusra Front and other militant groups.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he had spoken to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and their teams would meet in the next day or so to discuss the planned ceasefire.

“I am not here to vouch that it’s absolutely going to work,” Kerry said in Washington. While there had to be a diplomatic solution at some point, the question was whether the time is ripe, he added.

He asked whether Russia and Iran would work “in good faith” to bring about a political transition in Damascus.

TELEPHONE DIPLOMACY

Putin has embarked upon a round of telephone diplomacy, speaking to Assad, the Saudi king, the Iranian president and the Israeli prime minister. The Kremlin described the calls as an effort to explain the substance of the U.S.-Russia-brokered ceasefire.

The Russian Defence Ministry said it had significantly reduced the intensity of its air strikes in Syria in the past two days in areas where armed groups had expressed their readiness to join the ceasefire.

Russian state media have presented the fact that Moscow helped broker the potential ceasefire as a sign that Russia matters again on the world stage and has shrugged off what it has cast as U.S.-led efforts to isolate it over the Ukraine crisis.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he feared the ceasefire plan would do little more than benefit Assad.

Turkey has grown increasingly frustrated by the international response to the Syrian war, in particular U.S. support for a Kurdish militia it sees as a hostile insurgent force.

The Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which is fighting in northern and northeastern Syria, has yet to say if it will join the cessation of hostilities.

Ankara is also incensed by a Russian intervention which has tipped the balance of power in favor of its arch-enemy Assad.

“If this is a ceasefire that is up to the mercy of Russia, which has brutally attacked the moderate opposition and aligned with Assad under the pretext of fighting Islamic State, we fear that the fire pouring over innocent people will never stop,” Erdogan said in a televised speech.

The United Nations said it was ready for a huge aid effort if the fighting stops.

“We are now standing by … waiting for the signal,” a U.N. spokesman said.

The war has killed more than 250,000 people and left 4.5 million hard to reach with humanitarian aid, the U.N. says.

The United Nations carried out its first airdrop of humanitarian aid to the Syrian city of Deir al-Zor on Wednesday, delivering 21 tons of relief to civilians besieged by Islamic State.

The Syrian army and Islamic State fought fierce battles on Wednesday near Aleppo, where an attack by the jihadist group has cut the main land route to the city.

A government military source denied reports the town of Khanaser had fallen to Islamic State, although its fighters were firing on it from nearby positions.

Islamic State is escalating its assaults on government-held areas. The attacks appear to be a preemptive move, the military source said, because the militants expect to come under more pressure from the Syrian army soon.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed, Humeyra Pamuk, Tulay Karadeniz, John Davison, Ali Abdelatti, Michelle Nichols, Tom Miles and Dmitry Solovyov; writing by Tom Perry and Giles Elgood; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Kerry issues warning as Syrian parties back halt to fighting

BEIRUT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebel groups accepted a plan for a cessation of hostilities to begin on Saturday and the United States warned it would be hard to hold the country together if the fighting did not stop.

With hostilities reported on several fronts, rebels backed by Saudi Arabia expressed doubts about the proposal, which excludes attacks by the Syrian army and its Russian backers on the jihadist groups Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. Saudi-backed rebels said Russia had stepped up air strikes since the plan was announced on Monday.

For its part, the government in Damascus has made clear that continued foreign help for the rebels could wreck the deal.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would soon know if the plan would take hold. “The proof will be in the actions that come in the next days,” he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington.

If a political transition to a government to replace the current administration does not unfold in Syria, there are “Plan B” options, Kerry said, in a reference to undefined contingency plans believed to include military action.

The next month or two would show if that transition process was serious and Assad would have to make “some real decisions about the formation of a transitional governance process that’s real,” Kerry said.

“It may be too late to keep it as a whole Syria if we wait much longer,” Kerry said.

France said the leaders of the United States, France, Britain and Germany hoped the cessation deal could take effect soon.

The plan is the result of intense diplomacy to end the five-year-long war that has killed 250,000 and forced millions to flee their homes helping to cause a refugee crisis in Europe.

But rebels say the exclusion of Islamic State and Nusra Front will give the government a pretext to keep attacking them because its fighters are widely spread in opposition-held areas.

WAR OF WORDS

The Syrian government, backed by Russian air strikes since September, said it would coordinate with Russia to define which groups and areas would be included in what it called a “halt to combat operations”.

The terminology reflects the difficulties of getting peace efforts under way, with talks in Geneva making no headway and the failure amid further fighting of a cessation of hostilities announced on Feb. 12.

The United Nations describes a cessation as something that would precede the more formal ceasefire it is hoping to establish at some future date.

U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said: “A ceasefire implies a whole mechanism and agreements, signed agreements between the parties etc. This is a cessation of hostilities that we hope will take force very quickly and provide a breathing space for the intra-Syrian talks to resume.”

Assad objects to the word “ceasefire”, saying it is something concluded between armies or states. “It does not happen between a state and terrorists,” he said last week. Instead, he has offered a “halt to combat operations”.

The Russian intervention in the fighting has turned the momentum Assad’s way in a conflict that has mostly reduced his area of control to the big cities of the west and the coast.

U.S. Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he did not believe Russia was convinced it would suffer any consequences if the plan fails. He said he expected Assad’s forces, backed by Russia, would continue to seize territory.

“I don’t think Russia believes that anything is going to happen. And I think that’s why they continue to make the gains,” Corker said.

ALEPPO SUPPLY ROUTE

On Tuesday, Islamic State fighters were reported to have tightened their grip on a supply route to Aleppo that had been used by the Syrian government in its campaign to seize the city.

Heavy Russian air strikes in support of the army were also said to be targeting one of the last roads into opposition-held parts of Aleppo.

Damascus, backed by ground forces including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards, is making significant advances near Aleppo, which is split between rebel- and government-control.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reports the war using a network of sources on the ground, said Islamic State fighters had seized the village of Khanaser on the road, which remained closed for a second day. A Syrian military source told Reuters that army operations continued to repel the attack.

In a statement on the proposed cessation of hostilities, the government in Damascus stressed the importance of sealing Syria’s borders and halting foreign support for armed groups whose activities it said could wreck the agreement.

BLOCKADES, AID AND AIR STRIKES

The Syrian military reserved the right to “respond to any breach by these groups against Syrian citizens or against its armed forces”, the government statement added.

The main, Saudi-backed Syrian opposition body said late on Monday it consented to international efforts, but said acceptance of a truce was conditional on an end to blockades of rebel-held areas, free access for humanitarian aid, a release of detainees, and a halt to air strikes against civilians.

The opposition High Negotiations Committee also said it did not expect Assad, Russia or Iran to cease hostilities.

The powerful Kurdish YPG militia, which is fighting both Islamic State and rebels near Aleppo, is “seriously examining” the U.S.-Russian plan to decide whether to take part, a YPG official told Reuters.

Turkey, a major sponsor of the insurgency against Assad, said it welcomed plans for the halt to fighting but was not optimistic about a positive outcome to talks on a political transition.

A rebel fighter in the Aleppo area said he did not expect the ceasefire plan to work and Russian warplanes “will not stop bombing”.

(Additional reporting by Kinda Makieh in Damascus, Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Guy Faulconbridge in London and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Giles Elgood and Andrew Hay; Editing by Peter Millership and Peter Cooney)